


Stakes

by laughingpineapple



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Casual smooching, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 19:22:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13130382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: Phrasal verb (to s. out): to keep the impossible owner of that impossible wedding ring under surveillance even when no-one else seems to care anymoreNoun: a personal or emotional concern, interest, involvement in kissing the cute girlNoun (often pl.; regrettably not in this case): a kiss by the other cute girl as a prize, reward, increase in status





	Stakes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loveoftheimpossible](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveoftheimpossible/gifts).



 

 

 

Special Agent Tammy Preston took out her phone. A warm, late afternoon lingered in the outskirts of Las Vegas, and the café’s tables had just been touched by the growing shadow of the statue that towered over the plaza. She took it all in - the heavy air, the light blue of the sky giving way to the first hues of sunset. And she forced herself to look down at her phone again. Poetry wouldn't help, at least not right off the bat. _  
_

_ Dear _ …, she typed, holding her breath, and erased the word just as quickly.

_ Lieutenant Knox _ , she tried again. No cigar. Too formal. Was there a style guide for texts, in the year of our Lord 2017? The temptation to pull up the browser and look up some strict, established rules to follow was strong, but Tammy knew herself and knew that she would spend three hours reading it from top to bottom only to eventually lose heart altogether. She uncrossed one leg, crossed the other one, curled a lock of hair around her fingers and prayed that the twice-disappeared Mr Jones would call it in for the day and get outta the Lucky Seven building real soon, if only to put her out of her misery. She needed to see him with her own eyes, this man who was and yet was not Agent Cooper, whose wedding ring had been found in a dead man's stomach: Special Agent Tammy Preston did not leave a case half tangled up in who knows what nonsense.

And yet that was not what was breeding butterflies in her own stomach.

The phone was too daunting. The situation called for the drafting of an action plan.

 

The two pages Tammy filled in five portentous minutes looked like the world's tidiest conspiracy wall, size mignon to fit inside her beloved damask journal. At the center of it all was Major Briggs, tied with Jones’ wedding ring. Connected to it, all they had found out about the circumstances of his death. Then a row of questions starring Mr Douglas Jones: if he was Dale Cooper, and Dale Cooper had disappeared before her very eyes, what foul play had brought him back to this life and not at Gordon's side? Could this be a shape-shifting alien taking Cooper-as-Jones’ place? Could she at least play it off as a joke? The USAF digs UFOs, right? Tammy could swear there were some similarities between this story and the pile of bizarre celluloid trash commonly known as The Hidden (1986) - she wondered if rewatching that movie while sober would emphasize them or reveal a blander plot than the one her wine had concocted...

 

A flash of bright pink blindsided her.

“What wonderful  _ luck _ !” cooed a familiar voice. Tammy had only heard it in passing, months earlier in Twin Peaks’ Sheriff station, a curious chat, perfunctory interviews, but the Mitchums’ aides weren't the kind of girls you'd forget. And with her feather proudly bobbing to the right of her perm, and a more angular face compared to the softer features of her colleagues, this had to be none other than finger food boss herself, Candie. True to form, she was carrying a plate of sandwiches, which she put down next to Tammy's coffee. “It's the beautiful lady from the Federal Bureau of Investigations!”

Tammy blinked at that fluttery pink mass of enthusiasm. Why yes, thank you, that's how she strove to be remembered, especially by beautiful ladies from other walks of life. She straightened up her shoulders and flipped her hair behind her back with faux nonchalance.

When the woman bent down to get a look at her notes, asking with her trademark slo-mo intensity whether she was writing a  _ letter _ , as if no action in the history of humankind had ever been more awe-inspiring than that of putting pen to paper, Tammy snapped her journal close and stuffed it in her bag.

“I am requesting backup.”

“Is there… danger?”

“Not… the situation is not dangerous.” Curt and professional, Preston, she could still hear in her mentor's voice. Speaking of whom, the only real danger was for Albert to know about this, any of this, it was the kind of mess that would break his heart all over again and there was really no need for that. Going back to tailing Cooper's shadow was heavy enough for her too, some emotional backup would have been nice, but she was a grown girl who could handle herself. It was just that…

 

They stared at each other for a full row of seconds. It didn't matter how many; the part of Tammy that had trained herself to acknowledge appropriate behavior screamed awkward, but it got drowned in an instant. She'd been granted a time to admire and to be admired, as simple and full of beauty as the curves of Candie's curls.

 

“...you want to see this backup, then,” came Candie's eventual, thoughtful reply. 

It may have taken the pink lady a while, but lag or no lag, she'd seen right through her and Tammy could only nod, a little bashful. Her job didn't leave her many chances to meet people she might wanna ask out for a drink, and even if it did, it would take a small-scale miracle to make a stronger first impression than Lt. Cynthia Knox, strong and tall and quick to smile. They had shared precisely one drink at the Mayfair hotel's bar in Buckhorn before Knox 

hopped on her flight back to the Pentagon, a drink and a promise to call each other if they ever happened to pass through Philly or Washington respectively. 

 

“And it is hard to call? Your backup?”

Another bashful nod. After the year Tammy spent dragging her feet against all impulses to go native in the  _ other _ Washington with its trees and cherry pies, anxiety told her that she would've needed a very good reason to just pop in the Lieutenant's notifications all of a sudden. And surely, this was it: an unbelievable new lead on the loose ends of the Briggs case was her occasion served on a silver platter. If only she could muster up the words.

“It is very hard.”

“How can it be? In this beautiful world…” A smile crept on Candie's face, distant, lost beyond her thoughts, but as warm as the sunset that was painting them both in hues of gold. “Can you believe it? We can press a button and tell everything, to everyone, in the whole world. In this life, how is it possible to want something and keep it all inside? Doesn't it make you too sad to breathe? ...would you like a kiss?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“A kiss, from me to you. As encouragement! And…”

Tammy sat up and waited for her to catch up with her own sentence. Would she like a kiss? The plain black coffee she'd been drinking couldn't have possibly gone to her head, not even a little bit, so her flushed cheeks were all Candie's doing. Were some things that simple? Her porcelain doll looks, all silk and laces and big shiny pendants, had caught Tammy's eyes from the get-go. But if talking to a colleague was hard work already, approaching the strange woman under the uniform had felt like the stuff of legends. And yet.

“...I'm taking my own advice,” Candie concludes. Would you like a kiss?”

Tammy nodded, transfixed.

 

Candie knelt down, laid two fingers on Tammy's lips and locked eyes with her, and once again Tammy could let her whole world be Candie, her rich perfume and the sharp line of her nose, the sparkle of curiosity in her eyes and, this time, the languid touch of her mouth, soft, covered in strawberry balm. She stayed there, lips against lips as the sun went down - time didn't matter with this girl.

 

Eventually, and it was still too soon, Candie bounced back up and slowly focused on the tray she'd left on the café's table as if seeing it for the first time. “I've gotta go! Mister Mullins must be starving!”

Tammy bit her lip. It still tasted like strawberries.

“Thank you, Candie,” she said. What a beautiful world indeed. “Let me… know if you ever need encouragement yourself?”

“Sure thing!”

 

And off she went, leaving Tammy alone with her cold coffee, her phone and a big dumb smile that just wouldn't go away.

Were some things that simple?

_ Cynthia, I know it's been a while... _


End file.
